join our insect nation!

a naturalist from south florida. i really love bugs, plants, and natural florida. feel free to send me asks/submissions but i have a tendency to not notice them for weeks sometimes. i appreciate them though!

[senatortedcruz]

[afloweroutofstone]

My favorite category of government program to run across is "program you've never heard of doing extremely important work to solve a major problem which you have also never heard of." On that note, the US drops millions of pounds of sterile bugs over Panama each week in order to prevent a parasite infestation from moving into North America. Everyone say thank you to the Panama-United States Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of the Cattle Borer Worm (COPEG)

[afloweroutofstone]

This program had its funding cut during the DOGE cuts last year and now the parasitic worm they were trying to slow the spread of has officially arrived in the United States.

[batsandboba]

do not start gambling. go outside and locate a bug. now post it on inaturalist. bam. nature's gacha game

[batsandboba]

#id do this if it didnt doxx my location

inat has options for this! for each observation you upload, you can choose to keep the location public, not to disclose location at all, or to obscure it.

i'm a fan of the obscured option bc it shows the general area but not the exact coordinates, which allows for region-specific species ids without doxxing you. according to the inat help page it picks a random point within a 500km radius.

[silverbridge-harbor]

A juvenile bug isn't called a larva until it reaches the surface. While it's still underground it's called a margma

[knight-of-ashes]

It's midnight on a Sunday and my dash is several reblogs of an unscrollably-long and ridiculously well cited article on hagfish sex. I'm never leaving this website.

[2birds1pencil]

*insert piping plover emojis here*

[arthur-dentist]

I'm literally working outside of work hours rn (taking a lil break) to enter plover data bc these little buggers are so busy rn I spend all of my time in the field

[isaacsapphire]

I adore that this got in front of someone who was indeed working plovertime.

[floridensis]

iNaturalist

which taxon are you quiz

[northerlyy]

Ebony Jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata), female, taken May 23, 2026, in Georgia, US

A beautiful green damselfly perched in the sunlight, staring into my soul, daring me to try to get closer. This species is one of those ones that you have to let come to you instead of the other way around. They have a very large personal space bubble and are very sensitive to movement, but, if you sit still long enough near a sunlit perch, they'll fly right up! I ignored my own advice for this shot, and this lady was on high alert. It ended up making a cute photo, and I left her to it after so she didn't have to leave the area she was in because of me. I can't say the same for others!

[sanscest69]

I just realized that many many people have jobs

Rb with your job, wtf do you people do while offline???

[shithowdy]

it's 1pm at the marsh! come on down, we've got

𝓃𝑜𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝒷𝓁𝒶𝒸𝓀𝒷𝒾𝓇𝒹𝓈!!!

[floridensis]

in my last botany lab the professor had a prepared slide of diatoms set up for us to look at and i was not prepared for how delightful the slide looked

[glubshit]

[floridensis]

i say this a lot but truly, making myself do things changed my life. i made myself join a club at school. i dutifully went to every native plant society meeting and field trip. every time i was invited to something, or presented with an opportunity, i took it up, unless i had a concrete reason why i couldnt. it was exhausting and i dont do that anymore, but my "yes" phase saved my life.

initiating contact with a stranger to go to their house to see bugs would be unthinkable to me 10 years ago. but right now, its like i know im being a weirdo here but i dont care at all! and i was emailing and chatting with the lady so easily too. the old me could never, and id just be disappointed that its just not possible for me to have seen and collected them. but thats not me. i did it! i saw the once in a lifetime bug situation! and ill be contributing to science and education sending them to other collections! im alive!!

[floridensis]

OH MY GOODNESS HELLO. I am also a naturalist from FL. I'm from the Jacksonville area and have since been living in the central area of the state (spending a lot of time in Tampa/Orlando and in the areas in between). Super cool to see another bug/plant person from FL hanging out here, idk how I haven't found your blog before

(also ik south FL is pretty different from the other areas of the state so....idk how much we may actually have in common regarding our work but. still cool <3)

Hi! i dont know if im stupid or if you cant reply to asks privately anymore so i hope its ok to publish.

I currently dont do a lot of work in central florida, but honestly being able to work in the scrub habitat in central florida is the dream.

[floridensis]

i was pipetting out some beetles to give to someone from UF, and i found myself asking "is 25 beetles enough? is that good?" as if they wouldnt be over the moon with ONE

[floridensis]

i'm so jealous of your telephone pole beetle adventure! did you notice anything about the house when you visited that might suggest how or why it got the infestation?

she has had multiple leak events and so most likely theres still some rotting wood in there. i spoke to a dr studying structural pests who said that she has been getting a lot of samples sent to her of the larvae recently, esp in the past year. so possible theyre becoming more common, at least in parts of FL. as for how the hell this one woman is getting all these adults? i have no clue right now. but the story is developing

[floridensis]

visited a home with a telephone pole beetle (Micromalthus debilis) infestation today. i was able to collect an unbelievable number of adults, which will be sent to various insect collections. i dont really have words for how mind boggling this is

Telephone-pole beetle - Wikipedia

Telephone-pole beetle - Wikipedia

[floridensis]

imagine if you will that a bug has massively infested your home. youre seeing anywhere from dozens to hundreds or maybe more individuals a day. you are disgusted by the larvae, which remind you of rice and now you dont want to eat rice any more.

you dont know what they are, so you send specimens off for identification. when you get the results, you look it up and learn the bug is extremely obscure and theres almost no information on it, but you know its eating the wood in your house.

so you search and search and cant find much information online, but find a site called inaturalist that seems to have some photos and a little information about this bug whos infestation of your home has brought you to tears. you join the site, post your bug, and comment on all the other observations of it asking for help dealing with your problem.

now imagine that everyone's response to this infestation thats eroding your sanity is extreme awe and jealousy, and multiple scientists reach out to you with the intention to come to your house and take your bugs.

such is the life of this woman im talking to right now. i cant even imagine her emotions about all this. she did say joining inaturalist has helped her cope. now her creepy bug problem can be a crazy story she can tell for years